Mountaineers bow to
Dominican in NAIA Tournament
Cold shooting dooms Eastern Oregon in first-ever National Championship
appearance
March 11, 2004
Box
Score
SIOUX CITY, Iowa – The excitement had
been building for everyone for more than a week and a half, but the
16th-ranked Mountaineers dug themselves a deep hole early, fought
back, but ran out of energy down the stretch, in a 64-51 first-round
NAIA National Tournament loss to #17 Dominican University (Calif.).
The Mountaineer's troubles started
early, as Eastern Oregon (26-3) failed to score until the 15:28 mark
of the first half, falling behind the Penguins 10-0.
Eastern then regained its composure,
chipping away at the Dominican lead with stingy defense, eventually
pulling to within two points at 10-8 on a bucket by Tricia Haddock.
After a field goal by Dominican's
6-foot-4 center Timea Ivanyl, and a three-pointer by EOU freshman
Christie Weaver, EOU took their first lead in the contest at 13-12 on
a fast-break layup by Candice Davis with just over 10 minutes left in
the half.
Dominican then went on 10-2 run to pull
ahead by seven at 22-15 on a Penguin three-pointer with 6:19 on the
clock.
Christie Weaver answered for Eastern,
banging a trey followed by another three-pointer by Haddock, cutting
the Penguin lead to just a single point at 22-21.
A bucket by Dominican with just over 40
seconds left would push the lead to 24-21, where both teams would head
to the locker room.
Dominican pushed the lead to six points
over the first six minutes of the second half giving the Penguins at
35-29 with just over 14 minutes remaining in the game.
The next six minutes of the game,
Dominican answered every Mountaineers basket, three-pointer or two,
with one of their own. Eastern finally cut a chink in the armor
of Dominican with a 9-0 run, capped by Cory Nelson's put-back of her
own errant shot, to give EOU a 43-40 lead with 6:40 left in
regulation.
The Mountaineers surrendered the lead
back to Dominican at 47-45 on a pair of free throws by the Penguins at
the 5:25 mark.
EOU then managed to tie the game, one
last time, at 49-49 on a Michelle Kinley three-pointer with 4:01, but
that would be as close as Eastern would get, as Dominican finished out
the game on a 15-2, to win by the final margin of 13 points, 64-51.
Playing in their final games as
Mountaineers, Tricia Haddock and Jamie Jo Cant, each scored a
team-high 10 points, while freshman Weaver had 8 points.
Cant led a trio of Mountaineers, which
included Cory Nelson and Christy Smith, with 6 rebounds a piece.
Eastern Oregon shot just 27.5% for the
game, on 19-of-69 shooting. They also hit 7 three-pointer in 21
attempts.
The EOU defense was as stingy as ever,
forcing Dominican into 21 turnovers with 15 steals, but Eastern only
managed to convert those turnovers into 13 points.
The much-taller Dominican team
outrebounded the Mountaineers 49-37.
Eastern Oregon finishes the 2003-04
season as the best women's team in school history. Some of the
accolades for Head Coach Anji Weissenfluh and her team are: Most
win in a season (26), best winning percentage (.897), and longest win
streak (19).
Haddock and Cant finish the season with
1st Team All-Conference honors and await the NAIA All-American
listings next week. Cant was also named to the 2nd Team of the
CoSIDA District 8 Academic All-American team. She and teammate
Sarah Smith will also wait until next week's announcement of the
Daktronics NAIA Scholar-Athlete teams.
Michelle Kinley finished her career
being named to the All-Cascade Conference honorable mention squad.
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